Professional Documents
Culture Documents
March 7. T981 15
Mao Zedong—he appeared to be in sight of one by Argentina's Montoneros, and Uruguay's Tupamaros
1980. In the spring of that year, defectors from a team to the IRA Provisional, Spanish Basques, French
of atomic scientists told the BBC that they had been Bretons and Corsicans, Sardinian and Sicilian separa-
working on an atom bomb in Chasma, Pakistan, with tists, Turks, Iranians, Japanese, and Moslem insur-
$100 million put up by Colonel Qaddafi. Pakistan gents in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philip-
would make it but Qaddafi would own it, they said, pines, to name just some. (And, of course, Qaddafian
predicting its completion by 1981. Libyans, ready to take revenge on "disloyal" compatri-
ots in London, Paris, and Rome were generously pro-
March 7. 1981 17
French Bretons and Corsicans, Italians, Creeks, Turks. pened to be true. On the 17th of that month, a Palestin-
Most were clustered in three camps, at Sirte, Sebha, ian hit-team had attacked a Pan American plane at
and Az Zaouiah. But eligible candidates went on to the Rome's Fiumicino Airport with incendiary bombs,
more exclusive Raz Hilal camp near Tokra, for the burning 31 trapped passengers to death. Designed to
world's most advanced courses in sabotage, under block the imminent opening of Israeli-Palestinian
Cuban and East German instructors. They could also peace talks in Geneva, the hit had absolutely nothing
learn to be frogmen there, for underwater warfare. to do with the charred passengers in the plane, or with
Whether a coincidence or not, the IRA used frogmen Italy, for that matter. It was probably the most atro-
to blow up Lord Mountbatten on his fishing boat. cious terrorist act of the 1970s in Europe.
On investigating, the Italian Ministry of the Interior
Marck 7. 1 9 S 1 19
air missiles; and even the dreaded Scud, a highly underground left of Iran, Chile, Oman, and Puerto
sophisticated ground-to-ground missile with a 190- Rico—an intriguing choice. He organized a remarkable
mile range. conference in Benghazi for a "unified plan of struggle
That was a lot of equipment for an army of 22,000 against fascism and imperialism in America." He might
mostly illiterate troops (though the figure had doubled have been taking over from Fidel Castro at the Ben-
by 1980). But 12,000 Soviet military advisers came ghazi Conference in 1979, judging from his guest list:
with the deal. They alone would control the MIG 25s Sandinistas from Nicaragua, exiled Tupamaros from
(the MIG 25U Foxbat C), to be flown solely by Russian Uruguay, wandering Montoneros from Argentina,
pilots. Two squadrons of MIG 21s based in Banbah Marxist guerrilla bands from Chile, Costa Rica, Boliv-
would be piloted by over 100 North Koreans. Only ia, Mexico, Brazil.
Russians would be permitted to operate the missile
systems. Three hundred Czech technicians were flown
in for tank maintenance. Nine airstrips were built to
accommodate the giant Soviet Antonovs transporting
H IS PRACTICAL purpose at the meeting was to
revive Castro's sagging Latin American Junta
for Revolutionary Coordination and its Europe bri-
personnel and spare parts. Should the need arise, the gade. Delegates came from the JCR's branch offices in
Antonovs could fly in enough Soviet pilots and crews Paris, Rome, Stockjholm, and Madrid. What they
to man an impressive air force in a matter of days. talked about, mostly, was "how to increase the Latin
A thousand Libyan soldiers a year were to be trained American exiles' participation in international terror
in Russia and 3,000 more in Bulgaria, most pliant of operations in Western Europe and the Middle East,"
Soviet satellites. Soviet military advisers were sta- said the London Economist foreign Report.
tioned permanently in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tobruk, and Later that year, he co-sponsored an international
on the former US airbase at Wheelus Field. Not only gathering for the PLO in Portugal with the World
did the arrangements give Russia a strong enough Peace Council, well known—presumably even to Qad-
hold on Libya to turn its petroleum on or off for the dafi, by 1979—as an instrument of the KGB. Seven
West at will, but as Egypt's President Sadat observed, hundred fifty delegates came to Lisbon from every-
the Russians "were assured of a presence on the where, the majority from the Soviet bloc, at Qaddafi's
southern coast of the Mediterranean for the next 50 expense. (It cost him $1.5 million.) Their purpose was
years." to express solidarity with the Palestinian Rejection
Front. While they were at it, they also expressed soli-
darity with "the socialist countries, particularly the
T HE MYSTIC of the Libyan desert didn't seem to
mind. On the contrary, he appeared to be drawn
irresistibly toward the archenemy of Islam. "Marxism
Soviet Union." Then they expressed solidarity with
"the forces of peace and liberation . . . in Afghanis-
is closer to Moslems than Christianity and Judaism," tan." Finally, they expressed solidarity with "the peo-
he told the New York Times in 1978. "It is the Christians ple's struggle in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the American
and Jews who commit genocide. It is the atheists who Continent." (Italics are mine.)
call for peace and the cause of liberty." The next year Just which people's struggle they had in mind was
he announced that he had it in mind "to join the not left in doubt. The delegates roundly condemned
Warsaw Pact and let the world go to hell." There were "the imperialist and reactionary conspiracies hatched
some, he said, "who officially suggest" not only that against the Democratic Republic of Yemen" (Russia's
"the progressive Arab states" should join the Soviet South Yemen). Then they condemned "reactionary
military bloc but that "missiles with nuclear warheads attempts to disrupt peace efforts" (such as their own).
should be placed in North Africa and the Arabian They went on to condemn "the increasing military
Peninsula to defy America's hostile policy toward the build-up in the Mediterranean to strengthen NATO's
Arab nation." ("How do you feel about Soviet gulags?" southern flank," failing to mention the build-up of the
Neiosweek's Arnaud de Borchgrave asked him on that Soviet navy in the same area. Finally, they condemned
occasion. "What's a gulag?" was his reply.) NATO's determination—odious to the Kremlin—to
By then. Colonel Qaddafi had ceased to criticize the install cruise and Pershing missiles in Western Europe,
atheistic demons in the Kremlin—his sole reproach counterbalancing Soviet Russia's otherwise overpow-
was that the Russians still allowed Jews to emigrate to ering SS-20S. The last in particular gave the game
Israel, reported Flora Lewis in the New York Times— away: it was the single most vital issue of Soviet prop-
while his missionary role abroad took on an unmistak- aganda and diplomacy in 1980.
able cast. He began to cultivate Puerto Rico's separatist There was nothing surprising, then, in Colone!
terrorists, paying their way to the Continent for a Qaddafi's expression of his own solidarity with the
taste of underground high life. He homed in with his Russians late that December, when they sent 100,000
moneybags on Iran and Oman, high on the Russians' troops to occupy Afghanistan. Among states repre-
hit-list, and then on Polisario's staked-out area of the senting 700,000,000 Moslems at a conference of pro-
Sahara (after Oman's Dhofar insurrection was put test, only Libya, South Yemen, Syria, and the Palestine
down). He convened all of Western Europe's ultra-left Liberation Organization refused to condemn the
groups for a conference in Malta, along with the Soviet invasion.